Oh, it was a scam way before Vegas and pot. That was just the most recent incarnation. When I first ran into it, they were going to revolutionize media ad insertions - using toxic debt.
Then they were going to make a fortune suing Comcast, except they were the ones who fell short of their contractual obligations. Luckily the toxic lenders were happy to finance that fiasco too. Well, I guess it was actually funded by gullible investors, the toxics made some nice bank.
Then of course they entered the years of pot hype funded by, well, you can probably guess that.
"There's a sucker born every minute, 2 to take him and 4 to lend him toxic debt" PT Barnum's investment advisor.